Quitters and humidity

HenHoneyGirl

Chirping
May 26, 2015
359
34
81
Arizona
I candled a couple eggs this evening and noticed they were much lighter than I think is normal. They had he air bubble but it definitely was not as dark as some others I have in there. A couple days ago they were fine. Are they quitters? And also what happens if you're air bubbles are too small when the chicks hatch? I want to prepare myself since that might be the case as my humidity was too high at the start of incubation and of course bone dry Arizona has get a draft from a tropical storm on the coast at this time and now even dry my bator is 40%. -_- Is there anyway to DRY out a bator?
 
How far along are these eggs? It would help to know that as whether or not what you saw was normal can vary depending on where you are at in incubation. How far off from the ideal air cell size are your eggs from where they should be for their stage of incubation? If your air cells are a bit too small but the eggs have a ways to go to incubate don't worry too much because they should have enough time to evaporate more. But that depends on how old these critters are right now. Slight variations in air cell size seem to not matter too terribly much in my experience with hatching. I live in Colorado, so my challenge is not letting the air cells evaporate too quickly and drying the babies out.

Hypothetically if your air cells are too small two things can happen to the chicks potentially: a.) When the chick needs to pip internally if the air cell is too small it can often be too high up at the top of the egg for the chick to reach and they can suffocate and die when they were due to pip internally (although sometimes a chick that is desperate will make both an internal and external pip to reach air successfully). b.) Chick can be born with "sticky chick"- basically the chicks are smeared in their egg contents, sometimes they can have more swollen abdomens, or navels that don't want to scab up and close up as readily which can increase the risk of infection of the navel post hatching during the first week. Oh, and I have also heard that sometimes if there is too much fluid when the chick begins to absorb he yolk, etc that if there is too much add'l fluid tp absorb this can stress the heart out and kidneys and the chick will die sometime between pipping internally and externally before beginning unzipping.

Overall though things are okay if they are kinda-sorta-pretty close to where they need to be.
********One last sneaky humidity lowering trick fyi!***** If you open all your vents in the bator WIDE open full bore this will help to lower humidity too if you have already drained the water troughs fully.
Let me know how far along the chickies are abd what exactly you saw in a tad more detail upon candling so I can better help. Thx!
 
x2. Also to lower your humidity try adding a little dish with dry rice in it or those little silicon bags things that come in clothes/shoe boxes when you buy new. I know those are not easily to come by but the rice works really well.

Post some pics of your eggs is you can.
 
I'll candle those two again tonight and post pictures and I completely forgot the time in!! The turkey egg is 18 days in and the chicken egg is 10 days in! Thanks for the rice tip, I'll candle everything again Sunday and see whether or not it still needs to be lower If it's still around 40% if it does I'll add the rice.
 
x2. Also to lower your humidity try adding a little dish with dry rice in it or those little silicon bags things that come in clothes/shoe boxes when you buy new. I know those are not easily to come by but the rice works really well.

Post some pics of your eggs is you can.


I'll candle those two again tonight and post pictures and I completely forgot the time in!! The turkey egg is 18 days in and the chicken egg is 10 days in! Thanks for the rice tip, I'll candle everything again Sunday and see whether or not it still needs to be lower If it's still around 40% if it does I'll add the rice.
Another thing you can try if the rice doesn't work is unpopped popcorn.
 
Well now my chicken egg looks fine... Weird. I must have candled it wrong or it was another egg. Hmm.
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My turkey egg was still clearish though. Although now there's a black dot! I don't think there was a black dot when I candled day 16. Goodness I think the stress is getting to me!!
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And thank you for the tip on the rice!!! I went ahead and put a teaspoon in there because this storm has cranked up the humidity to almost back up to 50%!!!! And within 3 hours it's already dropped it down to 38%!! I candled I couple other eggs and the air pockets still seem smallish... Oh I hope everything turns out ok!! The suspense is killing me and I won't even be here for the defining moment when they're due to hatch!!
 

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